Tag Archives: Matty Matheson

Get Cooking this Fall!: Start Here and Home Style Cookery

23 Oct

Start Here
By Sohla El-Waylly
Our library has pulled a great selection of Fall cookbooks to put on display, and this book Start Here starts with teaching the basics through extraordinary recipes and flavors. The chef Sohla El-Waylly displays how to perfectly make any style of egg, how to carmelize, brown-butter anything, working with dough, and much more. Although she can run through the basics, her recipes have much more depth to them then the simple 1-2-3. For a wonderful Fall recipe, I picked her Walnut Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies that are just filled with warmth and brown-buttery goodness. Did you know leaving the cookie dough in the fridge overnight or even 24-hours before baking helps to hone in on that strong chocolate and butter flavor? Her voice, in the book and on her YouTube cooking videos, is so professional, yet she has done so much cooking that she is used to failing, and wants the readers to learn from it and also expect that not everything comes out perfect the first time. She goes on to say that this book was made just for that; all the hours put into school just to still mess up -it happens, but this is why she put a book together with all the basics covered, so we don’t have to fail as much. You’ve probably seen her on New York Times Cooking YouTube channel where she does cooking 101, and a mystery menu with her partner Ham El-Waylly. She even has a segment with The History Channel YouTube where she makes ancient recipes; for more historic recipe suggestions check out our review of Tasting History.

Home Style Cookery
by Matty Matheson
When talking about Fall recipes, we have to include some soups and broths -it’s the best time to consume them! In one of his many cookbooks, Home Style Cookery another YouTuber Matty Matheson goes over how to make just about every broth for the base of any perfect soup.  This book covers almost everything from breads to any style of vegetable imaginable, dips and desserts, and grilled and fried yumminess. As a vegetarian I’m always looking for a delicious veggie stock, and his mushroom stock is just what I was looking for. He uses the word “beefy” to describe the umami flavor taken from the use of cremini mushrooms. A secret he uses for this recipe is to roast the onion before adding it to the stock, which really brought a silky richness to the stock. I ended up using it for my start-of-Fall veggie soup, and it was gone in an instant! These recipes are super easy to follow and require low-effort to get it all done. He’s another one of my favorite YouTube chefs, and always makes me laugh with his videos. I also enjoy his personality, because his family is where my family originated -Newfoundland, Canada -so I love his Canadian references. You can also read a previous review of Matty Matheson: A Cookbook, his first recipe book/memoir.

October is National Cookbook month; you can also read lots of other cookbook and foodie focused book reviews written by our staff.

Written by:
Samantha Meyers
Information and Digital Services Assistant

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Recipes as Identity: The Great American Recipe, Matty Matheson: A Cook Book, and Magnolia Table: A Collection of Recipes for Gathering

24 Jan

The Great American Recipe
The PBS series Great American Recipe debuted in 2022 and both the first season and second season are available to Hoboken patrons on Kanopy. The shows feature American home cooks, from around the country who share a variety of different recipes, hoping to be the winner of the competition which will mean one of their dishes will be featured on the cover of the cookbook which is also packed with recipes from the 10 contestants as well as the judges and host of the show (Alejandra Ramos, Leah Cohen, Tiffany Derry, and Graham Elliot). You can borrow the cookbooks from BCCLS Libraries, but you may want to wait till you watch all the episodes to not spoil who won. The great thing about America is that the contestants can not only pull from the regional ingredients of where they are from such as the fresh veggies and fruits of California or the seafood of Maryland’s harbor, but also from the variety of recipes linked to the native cuisines their family members brought with them to this country. Contestants have a wide variety of backgrounds including Dominican, Korean, Syrian, Italian, Native American, Irish, and Mexican. Each episode features two recipes based around themes such as celebratory recipes or recipes that they learned from a friend. Much like cozy favorite, The Great British Baking Show, contestants are not cut throat, but form a foodie found family who jump in when one of them gets in the weeds. I enjoyed both seasons of the show and look forward to when Season 3 is available this year.

Matty Matheson: A Cookbook
Matty Matheson is a Canadian born chef who I first enjoyed watching on his TV show, It’s Suppertime. The book is a culinary autobiography of the recipes and people that shaped him. The book starts with his family and the recipes that stood out in his childhood and then moves on to signature dishes at restaurants where he worked as a chef. One recipe I hope to check out is the blackberry coffee cake with brandy based on a recipe from his grandparents, Lionel and Dorothea Poirier, who made the cake using blackberries from their own backyard (unlike Matheson, I love to bake). Another recipe that I’m sure will be a likely favorite with my own family is the Double-Bone Pork Chop with Maple Jack Daniel’s Bacon Sauce from Oddfellows, one of the restaurants where he worked. Matheson’s fans will be pleased to find that he narrates the audiobook version of the book. Matheson’s follow up cookbook, Homestyle Cookery: A Home Cookbook, is also available to checkout; where as the previous book focused on the foods that shaped him, the second cookbook is more about giving home cooks the basics to form their own culinary identity. I look forward to checking that one out since I have enjoyed his recent series of complimentary Youtube videos.

Magnolia Table: A Collection of Recipes for Gathering
by Joanna Gaines
My husband and I enjoyed watching, Joanna Gaines and her husband, Chip, on the show Fixer Upper. After the show ended she released her first cookbook Magnolia Table, which also shares the name with the couple’s Magnolia Network providing food, home renovations, and home decorating shows. The couple have a charming, homey aesthetic that carries over into Joanna’s food. The book has a focus on family meals as well as entertaining guests. The book features many family recipes some of which take advantage of the Gaines’s family garden, but others that also allow some quick convenience cheats like using refrigerated crescent rolls for her Quick Orange-Walnut Sweet Rolls. Some recipes I bookmarked to try out in my own kitchen include her recipe for Chicken Spaghetti, Baked Chicken with Bacon Bottom & Wild Rice, and an orange scone recipe. For fans of the Gaines family, you’ll enjoy the personal stories and photographs sprinkled throughout the book. If you enjoy this cookbook also check out the two follow up volumes 2 and 3.

Written by:
Aimee Harris
Information and Digital Services Manager

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